It is necessary to deploy a rope from one point to another in a variety of circumstances, including water rescue, rock climbing, boating, and so on. However, it is difficult for the average person to accurately deploy a rope, particularly in a panic or high-pressure situation. For this reason, a person will sometimes attach an object to one end of a rope and deploy the rope by throwing the object toward the target location or intended receiver. In water rescue applications, for example, the object attached to the rope may be buoyant such as Styrofoam life saving ring. Objects in the shape of a ball or other commonly thrown item are particularly useful for this purpose since many users already have some experience throwing similar objects. See, for example, the U.S. Pat. No. 3,974,536 to Franklin, where a rope is threaded through an axial passage of a buoyant football-shaped device and knotted at the end to secure the rope to the device. However, devices such as disclosed by Franklin can be difficult to use in practice because the person throwing the ball naturally imparts a spin to the ball, and when the spin is imparted to the rope, the rope tends to kink and fail to deploy properly. Furthermore, it can be difficult to attach a rope to a device such as disclosed by Franklin, particularly in an emergency situation, and such special purposes devices can also be expensive to manufacture. Accordingly, what is needed is an improved apparatus for deploying a rope that is easy to use effectively and inexpensive to manufacture.